We Choose Abundant Life: the future of the Church in the Middle East
St George Maronite Cathedral, Beirut
In September 2021 a document of major significance for the contemporary church in the Middle East, and all who care about its future, was published in Beirut, with the title We choose Abundant Life.
Embrace Trustee Dr Souraya Bechealany is one of its principal authors. Another is Rev Mitri Raheb whose successor as pastor of the Lutheran Evangelical church in Bethlehem, Rev Rr Munther Isaac, is also an Embrace trustee. We strongly encourage you to read, and reflect prayerfully, on what this document might have to say to us, collectively, and to you more personally.
The document takes as its start point Moses injunction to the people of Israel recorded in Deuteronomy (30:19b): “I have set before you life and death… choose life”. It concludes one hundred paragraphs later, with Jesus’ words, recorded by John in his Gospel (10:10) “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly”.
If you would like better to understand the situation faced by the church in the Middle East, the events of recent history, and how these have contributed to the challenges it faces, you should read this document.
If you are inclined to despair when you see the suffering of so many people, of all religions and beliefs in the Middle East, you should read this document.
If you feel that the sufferings, the joys, the yearnings, and the pain, experienced by Christians in the Middle East is, or should be, in some way interwoven with our own experience as members of Christ’s body, you should read this document.
The fruit of extended reflection, careful study, and openness to the Spirit, the text is inspired by a conviction that the Church must pay careful attention to the realities of life experienced by the great majority of people, and especially the young. All the key tensions and shaping movements of recent Middle Eastern history are place in context: from the legacy of colonialism, the Arab renaissance, the rise of secularising national movements - to the Arab Spring, the impacts of economic globalisation and the spread of increasingly militant expressions of Islam.
The authors argue for a Christianity open to the other; committed to pluralism and diversity over narrow identities and confessionalism; dedicated to solidarity and citizenship based on mutual service and equality; inspired by the vision of human dignity and flourishing presented to us by God in, and through, his son Jesus Christ. Theirs is a vision of hope amidst suffering and tribulation.
It concludes: We see in these choices and policies a thoughtful expression of the commitment of Christians in the Middle East to human solidarity and a dignified life for every human being in our region. We also see in them a rejection of the rampant culture of death and the adoption of the logic of violence to resolve conflicts. Our Christian presence must be founded on service (diakonia) to every human being, dedicated love, and genuine forgiveness, in obedience to the will of God. Our aim must be a more just and humane society in which the kingdom of God may be fulfilled, so that human beings may receive life as God has desired it for them, according to the words of Christ in the Gospel of John: (John 10:10).